pumpkin seeds

For the first eight days of this December my entire apartment was filled with old friends. Every morning I would wake up to a living-room battlefield of sleepy bodies and cast-off clothes, their garments and limbs draped lazily across every extraneous surface: couch, table, floor, and chair. The perilous daily crossing to the bathroom was a careful negotiation of careless leg arrangements and upturned wrists flung across pale faces; over soft hair spillings across gold couch cushions and clenched-fist pullings of blankets beneath neatly tucked chins. It was a perfect and entirely consuming practice. I seemed to have no time to do anything but work and return home to these faces, work and return home to them.

It wasn't until I stole home for a weekend that I had a chance to really cook again, and by then all I had it in my heart to do was somehow try and recapture that sense of complete comfort so briefly enjoyed in the presence of my true loves. Much to the ongoing anguish of lonely people everywhere, though, it turns out that almost nothing will serve as a substitute for the earnest and wholesome solace of being with close friends. Almost nothing EXCEPT for the combined scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin. So, having already been thoroughly stuffed with as much pie as one could possibly want in any season, I decided to take pumpkin down a slightly different path and turn it into some butter. Pumpkin butter! It is so delicious to even say it.

This recipe was simple...adapted straight off of allrecipes.com. I was overwhelmingly pleased with the results, but if you have any recommendations for substitutions or changes please, please feel free to share!

This piece from the NY Times Holiday Food section is also a very worthwhile read if you have the chance. It'll make you smile, I promise.